Great system, works really well in STALKER type games

A great way to PLAY!

Version Played : V1.19

One thing you should know going in is that this is a game, not simulation, not a crunch fest of list optimization. It is a place for some simple, over the top, Wagnerian space war fun. It is a great place for narrative fun and random events and captures the thrills, weirdness and semi RPG fun of Rogue Trader era play very well. It is NOT a "chase the meta", tournament game and balance is not geared towards tournament players. It is easy and fun to draft an army list. Do the rules have every all the things you would want to see for modern armies in it? NO. What you have is a very good representation of Rogue Trader types with a sprinkling of 2nd edition-ish content. That said, you can home brew with unit and character upgrades to get "close enough" for the feel lof a lot of things. Two things missing, as far as I can tell, are "Terminator" type armor and "Jump Packs" for assualt troops. Jump Packs exist for heros, just not units so, not sure what's going on there. These are both deeply silly, yet uttely awesome, things that were present in Rogue Trader Era content and set the tone moving forward leading us to a mind space of memes such as tank commanders yelling "Drive me closer, i want to hit them with my sword". It felt odd to have "Teleportation" without Termies, but, you could use it for any sort of reserve deployment and just change the flavor, for example, "bug tunnels" coud get your Crawlers onto the table. You just have to get creative with the rules by changing the flavoring, not the mechnics. I ended up adding some unit upgrades to regular infantry to make them feel a bit more hardcore thatn reular assualt troops and that felt Termie enough.

Loving having creative freedom takes pracitce

Need a Chaos army? Well, there is no "Chaos" list. Not an "OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED VERSION" anyway. One thing that is key to enjoying this game is getting away from needing a big vorporation to tell you what you can do and what you can use in a a game.

So what do you do? Well, you could use the "Star Knights" in a "Traitor Mode" by not allowing them any Imperial allies, but letting them take Orks (a very Rogue Tader era Freebooter move) and or picking from the Rebels & Dissidents list, since that happens to include cultists. Want lesser demons? No problem, you could use the "Ancients" from the hired guns section (Slaan stand ins). That gives them two Psionic Abilities. You could use these unchanged. If you want a minor tweak, maybe pick both powers at the cost of having to deploy by teleporting in on turn two or later. Demonic instability? Sure, hired guns have to test each turn to see if they feel like they are getting too much pain for not enough gain. If they fail the check, they leave battle. I hope you can see that there are a lot oftools here as is and the author is still adding updates as menaingful content buildes up and is tested.

Fun ffor the whole family

I was able to play this with my 11 year old. That is saying something. Tournament crunch does not really interest the child, but the random events, exploration, objectives and campaign options were a thrill. We had a great first game (Crawlers against Galactic Knights) with me playing solo for the first two turnes and the kid being drawn in. Things happen quickly. there is not a lot of grind or down time. Turns tend to have have interesting and impactful things happening all the time. You also have a challenge at hand in that your command and comtrol is limited and your choices are important. A huge army will be harder to manage but can soak some hits that a small elite force might find crippling.

Old school weird and wonderful

I found this game while trying to play Rogue Trader. Rogue Hammer gives me the same energy with less obscure complexity. Rogue Trader is wonderfull but it takes more effort to buiil a list and play. Rogue Hammer is currently a "One Book" game. I did not miss any of the granularity of pulling casualties or being fussy about movement. I embraced the "playing with style" guidance and thres down my hand crafted terrain, weird aquarium plants, and purple dyed moss. It felt so much like how I imagined Rogue Trader woudl play based on the photos of models in play.

"Why the purple bears?"

The author has provided a bestiary influenced by some of the best optons from Rogue Trader and these may show up reandomly in game. There is no need for a GM to handle this as the rules on what each creature does are clear. I have sourced nearly all the critters needed and look forward to having my "zoo" ready. Since I know the Bear listing is from Rogue Trader, I was able to learn that that the Rogue Trader versions are purple and look forward to my very own, very angry, purple bears just wrecking a plan at some point. I don't care if it is my plan, or my oponent's plan. I really don't. That is the mindset you want for this game. You want to be ready to embrace the attack of random Death Bears, Human - Sized Psionic Wasps, and perhaps even Mego-Reptiles (dinosaures, dinosaurs everywhere) with a song in your heart. if you can do that, if you can handle using the army lists as a tool kit and the randomness of dice abstracted into far fewer rolls, you will have a great time.

renegade scout has easily come to be one of my favourite squad level sci fi miniature game (or even skirmish, given that rules for those and just about anything you can think of are included) . well written, despite being more conversational in tone, it avoids any overly elaborate or unecessarily convoluted explanations of rules, making it easily digestible for anyone who's had some experience in miniature gaming before.

this expertly crafted system injects life into the popular-gothic-sci-fi-wargame of the 1980s to early 90s, as well as offering a really great launchpad for devising your own narrative scenarios in such a gritty and nostalgic setting. the system has lots of well thought out balancing measures for if you want to create your own units, whilst keeping the game fair. that said, of the half a dozen games i've played, all have been down to the wire. never having one side retain a crushing advantage over the other suggests to me, a well thought out ruleset. So well balanced is this game, that i seldom keep track of an armies points any more, rather just pitting a couple of retro-40 000 squads against one another and having (a lot) of fun with a friend. After all as i see it, the game was written with casual and narrative play in mind.

so pick out your old metal guys, set them up in an aesthetically pleasing way, and let the scenario unfold, always to a dramatic conclusion. such well written rules have become a staple of nordic weasel's products, and so i am glad to say that the £15.70 i spent on this all-encompassing ruleset was well worth it.

I've just played a quick five turn game of the starter scenario. This fratures two sides with identical forces of one fighter, three missile troops and three shield armoured troops. I played solo double handing both sides and had themed them fantasy-wise, though I didn't make any use of the prototype fantasy rules. Once I got a hang a rules, which didn't take long, the game ran swiftly and smoothly. There's a nice, elegant system here that feels like it runs itself. Of course this was just the first starter scenario; the consequent scenarios add increasing numbers and types of troops which will add more complexity, but the core mechanisms are no doubt just as simple and elegant. Once you've mastered the introductory scenarios there is a smorgasbord of scenarios and campaign play, including advice for gamemastered play and experience and reward for warbands and individuals. Enough to allow for hours of fun gaming. I haven't had the opportunity to play against another player, but i can imagine that it would be great fun and fairly quick to teach/coach. Highly recommended.

This edition is definitely a far more mature game, in that it is better organized and more complete than the first edition. More difficult aspects of the rules, such as air support, were sidestepped in the first edition, but here are completely engaged. And the complete rules for both unit design and campaigns are wonderful, allowing a full range of science fiction unit types from the small to the ludicrously oversized, but without being arbitrarily tacked on. It allows a lot of character in the game, where a lot of designs these days stop at the level of "it's all numbers, what's the difference," different unit types and sizes feel definitively different and there's opportunity for a great deal of variety and flavor that carries over to syles of play that the special rules encourage. At the basest level, too, the rules are much easier to read and the layout is extremely pleasant to look at, an often overlooked part of game design, and the whole book is very well organized. A very good edition and definitely a night-and-day improvement over the first edition.

This review is based on v 1.12.

I've never played Squad Hammer, but here are my thoughts and feelings about Rogue Hammer: Basically, it's a game with straight-forward and easy to pick up rules and it plays surprisingly quickly too. Even though you have to keep count of morale and mana and stuff, that is. Unfortunately, the quick and easy nature of the game also means it will sometimes feel a bit basic - even with random events and exploration events. I like how ranged combat was fleshed out with three ranges and a dynamic "melee" style firefight in which the enemy can (and will!) shoot back. All the random event possibilities and exploration markers are much appreciated. I really like the basic and easy to use armylists. They all feature one special rule for each army's infantry and one for its vehicles. This helps make the game feel less standard and more individual without you having to double-consider each choice or look up a unit's special rules. I do think the game could profit from some more in-depth rules concerning weakened units and weapon profiles though. Possibly also a more dynamic or less rigid cap on the total number of controllable units per side could be a good thing. If that's not beside the game's point. In my games, damage dealt tended to be on the lower side, so units rarely got destroyed and that felt a bit unsatisfying, actually.

As it stands, Rogue Hammer is in a bit of an odd place for me - limiting you to play with 4 units per side, fighting skirmish style battles, but with groups instead of individuals. Gameplay is nice and quick and the additions to the rules keep rolling in. All in all, I would say it feels a bit basic and limited at this point in time, but it does have cool capabilities of further individualisation through narration and events.

Excellent rules. Simple and effective. Well done.After also purchasing 'Not Just a Brush War', which is just as good for your campaign, I ended up also purchasing 'FiveCore Company Command' to be able to play my campaign at multiple engagement levels. And I think I could use 'FiveCore 3rd edition. Skirmish Gaming Evolved' to resolve my special ops attacks.I finally found my Holy Grail.Thank you Mr. Sorensen.

A Review of Clash on the Fringe (CotF)

Bottom Line Up Front: Get this game.

This is a highly recommended purchase if you have never played CotF and enjoy up to platoon level sci-fi action, or if you have the original version and enjoy playing it as the improvements to navigation alone improve readability and the overall experience of interacting with the rules of the game.

Inside this product you will find 159 pages of sci-fi goodness in a wonderfully laid out and illustrated package and well bookmarked throughout with rule sections linked and available from the PDF readers bookmark menu or from the PDF’s table of contents. This is a major revision in the packaging and presentation of CotF with some added clarity to the rules themselves. This is not a major revision to the CotF rules.

The core rules for game play are fitted into about 52 pages of the manual. Playable factions are presented in 26 pages of the rules. Factions are top level descriptions like Hulkers, Swift, and Bots - easily fitting your sci-fi miniatures collection into one the fourteen factions presented. If you are familiar with Five Parsecs from Home - these will be mostly familiar to you.

Troop types are infantry, vehicles, and monsters. Troop types are formed into units which may be a squad of infantry or crew served weapons, individual characters like leaders and heroes, vehicles, or individual monsters. All figures in the game are intended to represent individuals with the intent that each player will have 3-8 units fitting CotF into a platoon or platoon reinforced ruleset, a couple of small five man squads with a leader is a great start. A squad can be mixed and may have three riflemen, a leader, and heavy weapon support.

The mechanic. For each figure attempting an action, roll a d10 and score equal to or under figure’s modified characteristic relevant to the action being taken. There are five characteristics for units and all of them are important.

Units act on one of five orders which define movement and firing capabilities during their activation. This is the general stance or attitude of the unit. Leadership is exercised again when a unit leader or an individual leader activates and may issue additional commands to specific figures which may allow additional firing, movement, or rally opportunities. The unit order and leadership mechanics of CotF shines through and offer a player relevant choices that will impact success or failure.

There are no rules forcing cohesion within a squad, cohesion is emergent from the leadership rules which are critical to the game. Squad members too far away from a leader will be able to act, but will be significantly less effective overall and more brittle.

Fire and close combat will produce pins called Heads Down or may result in figure removal as a casualty. Casualties force Morale checks which may result in accumulated Stress hits on the unit. Stress will degrade the overall effectiveness of the unit until eventually they quit the field.

CotF finishes up by offering several additional features including:

CotF is easy to learn as the game concepts are not complex and it uses a unified mechanic, it is the interaction of the subsystems that create interesting decisions for the player with the order, leadership, and unit status mechanics being gems. For the rules tinkerer, CotF is easily hackable within the sci-fi genre, or to any era featuring squads, leaders, gun play and vehicles. This ruleset contains a ton of sci-fi wargaming fun.

This is currently my favorite miniature game. Very "your dudes" heavy with many customization options, special actions and random events during campaign turn. Sneak and reinforcement system makes balancing during scenarios fun. Do I risk exposing myself and giving more reinforcements to my enemies or should I play more carefully and miss additional loot/lose time/risk things elsewhere? I can heartily recommend this solo experience.

My only gripe (and reason for 4/5 instead of 5/5) is that rulebook is a bit fiddly to use and rules could be written more "solid". Still, best cyberpunk miniature game action I've ever had!

Imagine to wake up and be a kid again. Not simply going back in time, rather being able to feel again the awe and wonder of seeing the world for the first time, but with the full consciousness of the experienced adult you are now. You would get with a friend and play a game with toy soldiers together. A joyful, simple and intelligent game that feels profoundly "yours". That game would be Squad Hammer Core.

I played a solo game tonight to figure out the rules. Very easy to pick up and fast paced. It took around an hour and a half to play through 6 turns (rear guard scenario from Trench Hammer using Friekorps vs Baltic Nationalists) with a bit of paging through the rules. It seems like it will be very easy to scale up from the 4 units per side that I used - going to give this another try soon with some more troops and players but so far I'm impressed.

I got into Five Klicks because I liked the idea of a solo game set in a post-apocalypse that focuses on fighting your way up from the bottom in a world circling the drain. What I got was a hobby I now love, and a gateway to so much more. I've played almost fifty campaign turns between my main campaign and other, differently-flavored campaigns using the same system, and I've loved every minute of it all. Absolutely my most favourite game ever, and I'm excited to see even more content for it in the future.

Simple rules, fast gameplay and plenty of narrative aids to build a gripping story for your campaign as well as the characters involved in it, both your heroes and the villains. The game has plenty of "sub-systems" that help conveying the feeling of progression and growth of your abilities and at the same time let you begin with fewer things to keep track, which is a godsend for the solo gamer. This way the player doesn't feel overwhelmed by too many little options all at once, as they gets added to your "arsenal" once your pilots and staff advance in experience. This also lets the player have the time to assimilate prior mechanics and lets them feel less worried of risking to forget using the new abilities/options available. Another solitaire-game that is an absolute winner.

Simple rules packed wirh lots of action! solitaire focused so it tells a great story as your campaign plays out. one of the easiest mech games to get to the table and to keep getting it to the table over and over again. Ivan keeps updating it as well so it will only get even better.

This review is being written based on version 0.92 Weasel's Counterattack. Weasel-Tech will continue to grow based on the visions of the author and the input of the players so if anything in this review conflicts with a later version, my apologies.

This is probably the first full on solo space opera anime episodic campaign heavy tabletop skirmish game ever created, so there's not a lot to compare it to. The only other solo mech game I know of is 5150 No Quarter - Mecha Combat and that is an entirely different gaming experience. Other mecha games have a bolt on solo system that can work well, but Weasel-Tech was built from the ground up for solo play.

You start the game with a stable of 8 Mecha, 6 Pilots, and 6 Command Staff. Unlike most 5 X from Y systems such as Five Parsecs from Home, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, and Five Klicks from the Zone, Weasel-Tech does not have background generators for your characters. I used a random anime character generator to form my 6 Pilots and used a combination of characters I've been holding in my head and a random name generator to form the Command Staff. You start with 2 styles of mecha frames to choose from, and have 4 of each. You choose from available weapons and equipment to load them out and gain access to better tech levels as you increase in experience. This allows for more advanced mecha frames as well.

Not only does Weasel-Tech offer the fluid gameplay of campaign and combat as seen in most of the 5 X from Y systems it also has the single most important addition to gameplay that I had no idea I was lacking until I read it upon these pages.

The Social System.

It is an optional rule, but intergral for a true character driven experience. Personal encounters create plot importance, friendship, rivalries, love, and the potential love triangle shenanigans that could ensue. While it is not currently part of starting a campaign, I would highly recommend starting Turn 0 of your Operation with a roll through the Social System. Frank Castillo of Jaguars Den Games first suggested it on the Facebook group, and it is a winner.

Here is an example of how my Squadron is starting the game:

Pilot Orochimaru and Intel Officer Ami Mizuno meet in a Private Location. They have no known feelings for each other. An Unexpected Event occurs. While hanging out, Pilot Happy shows up. Orochimaru and Happy have a heated exchange.

Orochimaru and Happy are now Rivals

Before the arrival of Happy, Ami Mizuno and Orochimaru had spent some time together and got along well, strengthening their relationship.

Ami Mizuno and Orochimaru are now Friends

Happy and Ami Mizuno spend some time together after Orochimaru leaves, strengthening their relationship.

Happy and Ami Mizuno are now Friends

And that's how Operation: Strong Biscotti starts for Battlecats Squadron.